Thirty years after graduation
the Dad remained permanently eighteen,
repairing beat-up Chevys
and hanging with the boys.
When it was too late to work
he'd retire to his den
to do his drugs.
Not even discreet,
he'd smoke
as he drove the child
around the lake.
The Mom accepted.
Like a prom queen
she never found the courage
to look in the mirror
and say "No more."
For more than twenty years
she lived a parallel life
with her boy husband.
But the child could not understand,
intelligence told her
all was not as it should be.
Yet a three-year-old
cannot truly comprehend.
So the anger began building --
at the man-child
for the pain
he caused the prom queen --
at the prom queen
for making the child
her confidant.
At seventeen the child
broke a hand on a locker
and left suicide messages
on the computer.
At twenty-three she should
have graduated from college.
Afraid to leave --
afraid to go --
she languished
in the suffocating town
she wanted to escape. |
